Armored Fist

Friday, May 26, 2017

Platforms:

PC

Publisher:

NovaLogic

Developer:

NovaLogic

Genres:

Simulator / Tank Simulator

Release Date:

1994

Game Modes:

Singleplayer

Although I’m a huge fan of Novalogic games, I’m also first to admit that Armored Fist is far from being a great tank simulator. It’s a shame, since you don’t see that many passable semi-arcade takes on the subject of armored warfare. Armored Fist tries to rise to the challenge, but it simply lacks the polish and superior controls of its competitors.

Closing in on enemy armor with a T-72.

Armored Fist gives us four armored vehicles – the American M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank (MBT) and M3 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV), and the Russian T-80 tank and BMP-2 IFV. Tanks are the heavily armed and armored, highly maneuverable unit of the modern fighting force, while IFV’s are vehicles mainly used to transport infantry into a warzone, and not normally a match for heavy armor. Tanks themselves employ armor-piercing shells, high-explosives, machines guns, and, in some cases, missiles.

Armored Fist itself offers numerous campaigns and missions involving each of these vehicles, playable from either the Russian or American side, each with their own objectives and backgrounds. You control both single vehicles and entire platoons, as well as call in artillery attacks and air strikes. This can make the game rather bewildering, since you’re simultaneously platoon leader, strategist, gunner, driver and scout.

There’s nothing really subtle about Armored Fist – playing it is just a matter of charging your tanks in and picking off targets faster than the opposition. You might think that IFV’s should attack soft targets while MBTs are reserved for opposing armor, but unless you’re driving each tank at each moment, this isn’t going to happen. Tank combat is far from being realistic as well. You can’t scroll through a series of target locks, nor can you set the turret to auto-rotate to keep a target in view.

Exterior views of your tanks are worse than those in Comanche, and the terrain and unit graphics themselves are poor at best. The Voxel Space technology that worked from 100 feet up in Comanche doesn’t work at all from 10 feet away in Armored Fist. Overall the game is just messy and hard to control, and is either too simplistic as far as armored combat for simulator fans and too complicated for the regular arcade player.